[El_Phil]

Not a proper update, just an idea that have been rattling around for a while.

Intermission

Most stories are just concerned with the big stories, the epic tales spanning galaxies that change the lives of billions. Such stories however are little more than the sum of all the smaller stories, tales such as this one.

The Rolls-Royce R&D lab on Hope was the biggest off-world engineering centre in the Republic, and home to all their bleeding edge projects. The board would tell you that this was because of their comitment to the colonisation programme. Cynics might suggest that the lax safety regulations were a bigger motivation.
Ted Riley, freshly transfered from the research labs on Ocelotm, was looking at the readouts from the new Spey engine on the test bed.
"That's interesting."
His boss looked over at him, checked his display and then hammered a button. Across the lab sirens wailed out and blast doors slammed down as the safety lockdown procedure started.
"What did you do that for?" Riley asked in a shocked tone of voice
"Because you didn't." was the simple reply
"What?! All I said was 'That's interesting' and suddenly we're in lockdown, what was.."
Riley was interupted mid-flow by a muffled bang as several kiloton of prototype engine energetically re-decorated the sealed test bed area. After Riley calmed down he looked at his boss, who had barely reacted. In fact he was looking a bit smug with an 'I told you so' look on his face.
"OK, how did you know?"
"Simple, this is a development lab not a research lab." his boss, Jameson, replied
"So?" Riley didn't follow at all
"In research everything is overbuilt with huge safety margins, as the purpose is just to prove the concept right?"
Riley nodded, the first prototype had been massive and cost a large fortune.
"In development we have to produce something practical from all the great ideas. First thing to go are the huge safety margins, after all the research guys have ony passed it on to us because they understand the system. There is, however, one small problem with this system..."
"The research department never actually fully understands what's going on?" Riley interupted
"Precisely. So when we hear 'That's interesting.' something unexpected has happened. And unexpected can be explosively dangerous so we go straight to lockdown."
"So what now?"
"Order a cleanup crew to fix the testbed room, call supplies for a new prototype and send the data dump back to Ocelot." Jameson replied
"Then?"
"Knock off early and head to the pub for a few days, till the new engine turns up."
"Gravy!"